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Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Sepia Saturday - Love from Flanders Field

Each week Sepia Saturdayprovides an opportunity for genealogy bloggers to share their family history through photographs.This week's prompt features a couple (in war time?) enjoying a romantic moment.

As a child, it was a great treat when I was allowed to look through a shoebox kept in a fireside cupboard at my grandfather's house. It was full of old photographs of the family - Grandad (William Danson) had eight brothers, one sister and five children). Many of the photographs were taken at the time of the First World War. What especially caught my attention and fostered my interest in family history were the embroidered postcards Grandad had sent back to his family from Flanders I have featured many of them in previous blog postings.

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William and Alice Danson - my grandparents , c.1916

But in the collection were some different cards that Grandad sent to his wife Alice. I never knew my grandmother who died when I was a baby. Grandad was a taciturn labourer, not given to flowery language, so the emotions expressed through these cards seemed out of character, but revealed his closeness to Alice.By contrast, the pencilled messages on the back were very prosaic.

Field Post Office - Feb 7th 1918. Dear Alice, received your letter allright, I have landed back at the Batt and am in the pink. I have had a letter from Jennie [sister] and am glad they have word from Tom [brother]. Your loving husband, Billy XXX

Field Post Office 29 April 1918

Dear Alice, just a line to let you know that I am in the pink and hope all at home is the same. There is nothing that I want. Will write again shortly. Your loving Billy XXX

I don't know when this card below, with the embroidered rose, was sent, but again it shows my grandparents' love - an appropriate theme for Christmas.

A beautiful photo and great sentimental cards. I just finished a book on WW1 POWs that described how many soldiers and their families devised coded messages for their letters and cards in order to get around the censors. The French postcard sellers certainly did a big business with the British soldiers.

Thank you, Kat for your comment and I am pleased you liked the cards. Yes my grandfather survived the First World War. He won the MIlitary Medal fighting at Givenchy on the Somme and took part in the Battle of Passchendaele, though he never talked about his experiences. He died in 1965.

About Me

I have been interested in family history for years. It all began when I was allowed as a child to look through the old family photographs and memorabilia kept in a shoebox in the cupboard at my grandfather's house. That treat started me on a fascinating ancestral trail.